Those Little Cards And the Man Behind Them

Published: September 21, 2003

To the Editor:

Re ''The Cards That Put Students in Their Place'' (Coping, by Anemona Hartecollis, Sept. 14): As a Brooklyn high school teacher, I never thought of the Delaney card, even remotely, as a student's ''only shred of identity.''

Delaney cards are no more impersonal or personal than the person teaching the class. They just expedite attendance taking.

I retired more than 10 years ago and have 27 years worth of Delaney cards in two shoe boxes. The phone numbers and addresses on them have allowed me to contact former students, and because I kept grades on them, I've been able to write honest college and job recommendations years after I might have forgotten how a student did in my class.

Hanging on to my Delaney cards has also been a way to hang on to all those young men and women who spent part of their lives in my classroom. I have never taken the cards out and gone through them, like Silas Marner running his coins through his fingers. But throwing them away would be more than discarding a bunch of little cards.